Part 1 (1/2)

Silverberg, Robert.

Men and Machines.

Introduction.

The first man to use a machine was the first of our primitive ancestors who picked up a rock to hurl at some pa.s.sing animal or to crack open some edible nut. In the million-plus years since then, our machines have grown much more complex, but even in our modern era of computers, rockets, and color television, their basic purpose remains the same: to serve man.

Whether our machines truly serve us is a question much debated by science-fiction writers and other professional speculative philosophers. Does some essential quality go out of human life when it becomes too easy? Have our automobiles, telephones, typewriters, and elevators sapped our vigor? Are we speeding into flabby decay because we have made things too easy for ourselves?

And as our machines grow more able, when do they cross the boundary that separates the living from the unliving? Is it possible that we are building machines that will make humanity obsolete? Perhaps the day is coming when we ourselves will be rendered unnecessary, and our sleek successors, creatures of metal and plastic, will inherit the earth.

The relations.h.i.+p between man and his machines is a complex and many-sided one, compounded by love and hate. Many a bitter attack on the encroachments of the machine age has been produced by a writer using an electric typewriter in an air-conditioned room, innocently unaware of the inner contradictions involved. We need our machines, but we fear them; and out of this tension come ideas best dealt with in the guise of science fiction.

Ten science-fictional explorations of the man-machine relations.h.i.+p are offered here. Some are lighthearted excursions into fantasy, others bleak and forlorn visions of a hopeless future. They show man as the master and as the slave of his machines, as the victim and the tyrant, as conqueror and as conquered. No sermons are intended: the purpose of these tales is to entertain, to stimulate, to suggest possibilities. But implicit in them is the awareness that we have only begun to cope with the problems that our age of fabulous machines is creating.

R.S.

COUNTER FOIL.

by George O. Smith.

We sometimes used to be reminded how dependent we have become on our machines. A substantial part of the northeast United States received such a reminder one November evening in 1965, when a trifling technical difficulty blotted out lights and power for 30,000,000 people over a vast area. George O. Smith's story, written before the great power failure, shows the even more devastating possibilities in a transportation breakdown. Of course, the transportation system he describes is one that doesn't yet happen to be in use-but allow him that one bit of fantasy and everything else follows with devilishly consistent logic.

George O. Smith has long been well known as a devilishly logical character anyway. An engineer by trade who has been involved in military electronics research, he has been writing s-f since 1942 and has published over one hundred stories. A good many of them deal with the technical problems engineers of the future are likely to encounter, and are impressive both for their insight into technological processes and for the sly, lively wit that makes them favorites even of nontechnical readers.

It was near the close of a normal day in late July, if a day in late July can properly be called normal. The temperature and the humidity were tied in the mid-nineties; a reporter from the News fired the usual egg on the pavement while his photographer snapped the picture that would adorn tomorrow's front page. There had been three flying saucer sightings reported, and the Loch Ness monster had made his appearance right on schedule. The cases of heat prostration were running at par, and nerves in the un-airconditioned areas were fraying short. Still, the clock displayed hope as it crawled on toward the end of the work day and promised freedom from bondage and the right to pursue both internal and external liquid happiness.

Gertrude, the videophone receptionist, still looked crisp in her office. Her voice as she responded with the singysongy, ”Tele-por-TRAN-sit,” had not lost its lilt. But it was obvious to the caller that Trudy sat in air-conditioned splendor. And either she loathed the idea of leaving her comfort and going home, or she despised him who called. For after the lilting greeting, her voice dropped to a flat, ”Oh, it's you again.”

Johnny Peters smiled. ”Show?”

”No.”

”Swim?”

”No.”

”Dinner?”

”No.”

”Nothing?”

”Nothing!”

”Trudy, I'm not poison, you know.”

”Johnny, I know you're not poison. But you're not very ambitious, either.”

”Now listen,” he said sharply, ”I'm only asking for a date. I'm not offering to have you share my frugal life, bed, and board as a lowly technician. A date I can afford; a wife I can't.”

”You could try to get ahead.”

”I've made my bid. I asked my ill.u.s.trious leader for advanced training and an accelerated course so I could move along faster, and he said that moving too fast was bad for a young man. Shall I quit now and go elsewhere?”

”Where would you go?”

”That's the trouble, Trudy. I majored in teleportonics, and it's either teleportonics or I go back to school and start something new. Think the boss-man will move me faster in Greater Chicago? I doubt it. So I might as well stay right here in Megapolis.”

”I suppose you're right.”

”All right, let's start over again. Show?”

”Johnny, not tonight. I'm busy.”

”Tomorrow?”

”If we're not all cooked by then. Call me, Johnny.” ”Will do,” he said with a growing smile.

Johnny Peters broke the connection and checked his instrument panel. The primary powerline from Con Edison was running a tenth of a volt low; with bored, routine gesture he twitched a k.n.o.b, watched the voltage rise, and then he settled back with little more to do until the end of his s.h.i.+ft of duty.

In the distant reaches of the city, the uneasy slumber of a napping woman was broken by a wave of pain. A gush of body-warm wetness brought a flash of things to mind that came and went as fast as thought, far too rapidly to reproduce in any electromechanical medium of expression. She thought, in turn: It was her firstborn. The doctor said there was little point in predicting the arrival of a firstborn because they had no record upon which to base an estimate. The women in her family were p.r.o.ne to deliver in taxicabs and ambulances on the way to the hospital.

A second wave of pain a.s.sailed her, interrupting the rapid flow of thought. Then as the pain subsided, she went on: That was fast!

She struggled to her feet and duckwalked heavily on her heels to the videophone. She pressed the b.u.t.ton for one of the stored-program numbers and immediately a crisp, cool voice responded, ”Tele-port-TRAN-sit,” in the lilt with all four clear tones sounding in order.

”Trudy, this is Irma Fellowes. Can you connect me with Joe?”

”Sure thing. Half a mo' and you're on. How's things?”

”Baby's on the way.” The simple statement was emphasized by a smothered groan and the grimace of pain on Irma Fellowes' face.

Trudy gulped and lost her cool, crisp, composure. ”Whoops! I'll give Joe the double-whammy ring.”

The muted wail of a siren came, and almost instantly the scene on the videophone switched to a man, seated at his desk. His face was still changing to a look of puzzled concern. He barked, ”Where's the emergency and wha .. . oh! Irma. Wh . . . er . . . ?”

”Baby's on the way, Joe.”